John Upham wrote:I play for a county which is not permitted to play in any variation of the ECF County Championship and hasn't been for some years.

One person has taken upon himself to decide that this county cannot and shouldn't field teams.

The players who could potentially play in these matches are denied this opportunity.

Can I organise and enter a team on behalf of those who wish to play?

As Alex H and you have subsequently said, the situation has arisen because your county is no longer affililated to the SCCU.

The affiliation fee is Â£50 and the entry fee for the SCCU Counties Championships is Â£20 per team. These sums seem to me to be modest in the context of the annual turnover of a typical county association.

Players from your county miss out in ways other than the one you describe. A year or two ago a junior from your county won an event which incorporated an SCCU Junior Championship. He wasn't eligible to be awarded that title - because your county is not affiliated to the SCCU.

Attitudes in your county have to change before the situation can change. That's not in any way a criticism of you. I know that you've been striving to achieve precisely such a change of attitude.

Can that rule not be rewritten though in these exceptional circumstances?

I've noticed that there seems to be a lot of "no, because the rules say so". Well, if most people would like to see it happen, why not change the rule? In this case, I don't see the problem with letting John field a "Berkshire" team, and it would surely be of interest to the SCCU.

Out of interest John, why don't you offer to pay the fees for Berkshire CA? If they get a free affiliation, what possible argument could they have against it?

Can that rule not be rewritten though in these exceptional circumstances?

I've noticed that there seems to be a lot of "no, because the rules say so". Well, if most people would like to see it happen, why not change the rule? In this case, I don't see the problem with letting John field a "Berkshire" team, and it would surely be of interest to the SCCU.

Out of interest John, why don't you offer to pay the fees for Berkshire CA? If they get a free affiliation, what possible argument could they have against it?

Your last paragraph makes perfect sense to me. Whether it will to Berkshire CA is not so clear, unfortunately.

As regards your middle paragraph, there are competitions which are essentially open to all, for instance the 4NCL. Then there are competitions which are only open to certain categories of individuals or organisations. Amongst the latter are the British Championship, the Counties Championships, the Yately Manor National Schools Championship and, I would have thought, the BUCA Championship (apologies if I haven't got the name right).

You get into a lot of trouble if you start bending the rules because of hard luck stories, or because a few people seem to be acting unreasonably. In the late 1990s an issue about whether a non-school team could enter the National Schools led to the resignation of the then BCF Junior Director. In the mid-1990s the then Controller of the Counties Championships fell for a sob story about why a player graded 150 should be allowed to play in the Under 150 Division of the Counties Championships. The aftermath dragged on for months.

It is in any event too late to alter the SCCU Rules for 2010-11. The SCCU Annual Council Meeting was last Saturday.

However, I've sent John a PM suggesting that the matter be explored further privately.

David Sedgwick wrote:As regards your middle paragraph, there are competitions which are essentially open to all, for instance the 4NCL. Then there are competitions which are only open to certain categories of individuals or organisations. Amongst the latter are the British Championship, the Counties Championships, the Yately Manor National Schools Championship and, I would have thought, the BUCA Championship (apologies if I haven't got the name right).

Well, yes, but it is clearly the case here that John's team would have been - in effect - the Berkshire CA team, just not officially recognised by them.

Regarding BUCA, if their secretary/President/whatnot decided not to join because of the extortionate membership fee (Â£0, so a bad example), then I'd happily accept a sob story from a group of players who attended it in order to field a team. If anyone else objected, tough. They can vote me out if they don't like it.

David Sedgwick wrote:As regards your middle paragraph, there are competitions which are essentially open to all, for instance the 4NCL. Then there are competitions which are only open to certain categories of individuals or organisations. Amongst the latter are the British Championship, the Counties Championships, the Yately Manor National Schools Championship and, I would have thought, the BUCA Championship (apologies if I haven't got the name right).

Well, yes, but it is clearly the case here that John's team would have been - in effect - the Berkshire CA team, just not officially recognised by them.

Regarding BUCA, if their secretary/President/whatnot decided not to join because of the extortionate membership fee (Â£0, so a bad example), then I'd happily accept a sob story from a group of players who attended it in order to field a team. If anyone else objected, tough. They can vote me out if they don't like it.

That would open up a can of worms. It's one step from accepting "unofficial" teams, to having rival entries both claiming to represent the university/association etc etc. Then you draw other member associations into having conflicting opinions on the matter and before you know it you have a split in the 'governing body' itself. And then it's a small step to two governing bodies and then... "let's play darts!" (or worse "let's get ready to rummmmble...")

David Sedgwick wrote:As regards your middle paragraph, there are competitions which are essentially open to all, for instance the 4NCL. Then there are competitions which are only open to certain categories of individuals or organisations. Amongst the latter are the British Championship, the Counties Championships, the Yately Manor National Schools Championship and, I would have thought, the BUCA Championship (apologies if I haven't got the name right).

Well, yes, but it is clearly the case here that John's team would have been - in effect - the Berkshire CA team, just not officially recognised by them.

Regarding BUCA, if their secretary/President/whatnot decided not to join because of the extortionate membership fee (Â£0, so a bad example), then I'd happily accept a sob story from a group of players who attended it in order to field a team. If anyone else objected, tough. They can vote me out if they don't like it.

That would open up a can of worms. It's one step from accepting "unofficial" teams, to having rival entries both claiming to represent the university/association etc etc. Then you draw other member associations into having conflicting opinions on the matter and before you know it you have a split in the 'governing body' itself. And then it's a small step to two governing bodies and then... "let's play darts!" (or worse "let's get ready to rummmmble...")

I agree with Richard.

Alex, I believe that Worcestershire enter the MCCU Open (Minor) Division and the U140 Division, but not the U180 or the U160. Presumably one of the reasons is that you don't want to spread your limited resources too thinly. Suppose someone with no authority to act or speak on behalf of Worcestershire were to approach the MCCU and say that he wanted to run a Worcestershire U160 team, offering to pay the entry fee. Would you be content for the MCCU to agree to this?

We've had these kinds of situations within the SCCU and I have painful memories of the sort of problems they can cause.

The present state of affairs is very tough on Berkshire players who would like to play proper county chess, but it's up to them to persuade (or change) the leadership of their county.

Richard Bates wrote:That would open up a can of worms. It's one step from accepting "unofficial" teams, to having rival entries both claiming to represent the university/association etc etc. Then you draw other member associations into having conflicting opinions on the matter and before you know it you have a split in the 'governing body' itself. And then it's a small step to two governing bodies and then... "let's play darts!" (or worse "let's get ready to rummmmble...")

If for example, the President of University X does not want to be a member of BUCA, and a group of four players from X want to play in a University team in the event, I don't see the problem. There won't be rival entries, I'm just saying that if there is no plan to field an official entry, then an unofficial one won't cause a problem. Of course if there are competing claims, then the official one wins every time. It would be a last resort to let an unofficial team in, but I don't see why a University would be so daft as to cut off their nose to spite their face.

David Sedgwick wrote:Alex, I believe that Worcestershire enter the MCCU Open (Minor) Division and the U140 Division, but not the U180 or the U160. Presumably one of the reasons is that you don't want to spread your limited resources too thinly. Suppose someone with no authority to act or speak on behalf of Worcestershire were to approach the MCCU and say that he wanted to run a Worcestershire U160 team, offering to pay the entry fee. Would you be content for the MCCU to agree to this?

The MCCU would probably inform Worcestershire CA, and after a few talks to smooth it out/explain why they weren't contacted first, I doubt the Worcestershire CA would say no, particularly if they incur no costs. Someone in Worcestershire wanted an U160 team this year. The reply was that there was no one really around to run it (busy running other things), and would he be interested in running it himself. That was the end of the conversation.

Relating this to BUCA, I doubt anyone would protest in such a situation. I doubt that any society who had such a President would not remain in the job for long. Given that student turnarounds are perhaps 3-4 years, it would be quickly forgotten. By contrast, the people on the current SCCU board probably haven't changed much in the last 30 years.

NevilleBel wrote:I must declare an interest in SCCU disputes because Buckinghamshire's disagreements with the SCCU are similar to Berkshire's.

There are better chess activities than travelling round the M25 to Wansted or round the South Circular to Catford to play in a losing team. There are also better captaincy experiences than persuading 130 players to make these travel trips to sacrifice themselves to 180 opposition.

For players in the Berks, Bucks , Oxon areas we have the 4NCL usually on our doorstep and more tournaments (with e2e4) than we can justify the time to play in.

In both Bucks and Berks there would be nothing to prevent an advocate of playing in the SCCU competitions from standing for election as match captain on a platform of re-entering the competitions. How much support such a proposition would receive is a matter of doubt. The AGM might be prepared to support the experiment, the real test would be the team in the first difficult away match.

Berks had a contested election once about whether to move what was then the second team from the Chiltern (Bucks, Berks, Oxon, Hants) to the SCCU. The Chiltern won the vote.

John Upham wrote:I play for a county which is not permitted to play in any variation of the ECF County Championship and hasn't been for some years.

One person has taken upon himself to decide that this county cannot and shouldn't field teams.

The players who could potentially play in these matches are denied this opportunity.

Can I organise and enter a team on behalf of those who wish to play?

There is no Berks county team in the SCCU because there hasn't been a captain prepared to stand at the AGM and promise to take 16 board competitive teams to Sutton, Wansted, Catford and other venues round the M25 or deep in Greater London. If you don't enter competitions, paying for membership to gain entry is a bit of a waste of time. The "vanity" argument of being eligible for (junior) titles hasn't held sway either. Bucks by contrast are happy to live with the membership for titles issue.